Chapter 26
Lila Mae Dixon blinked again and reminded herself of who she was, and why she wanted to be there.
She’d handled board meetings far surlier than this cowboy, and she moved over to the cat carrier, as Cleopatra once again voiced her displeasure at being left inside.
“Oh, you’re fine,” she scolded the feline, and she crouched down right there in an almost muddy spot where she’d been dropped off.
Her nerves beat through her now, though coming to Three Rivers and opening this cat sanctuary was everything she wanted.
More importantly, it was everything her brother didn’t want, and Lila Mae was determined to prove him wrong.
“There you go,” she said in a soothing tone as she pulled the Bengal out of the carrier. She quickly grabbed the leash that rode with Cleo and snapped it to the cat’s collar before she could bolt. “Now sit down and introduce yourself properly to Travis.” She glanced over to him. “I mean Trap.”
She’d never heard of the nickname Trap for a man named Travis, but this was only Lila’s second time in Texas at all, and she once again threw a question heavenward as to why God had wanted her to come here.
She didn’t know why, only that she’d gotten the impression multiple times in the past couple of years about opening a cat sanctuary, and leaving the boardroom and company politics to someone more suited to it.
That certainly wasn’t her, though she had spent some time in slacks and heels, trying to get men to listen to her.
“You have a cat on a leash,” Trap said.
“Yes,” Lila said crisply. “This is Cleopatra. You may call her Cleo.”
Now that was a nickname that actually made sense. Trap blinked at her, his eyes getting even wider. “I may, huh?” He moved closer and crouched down.
“Sit down, Cleo,” Lila Mae commanded, making her voice as crisp as possible.
The Bengal hardly listened to anyone, and she wanted to make a good impression on Trap for some reason that had nothing to do with how handsome he was, with that full, dark beard and dressed in slacks and a white shirt and tie for church.
Lila Mae would like to see him scruffy and dirty too, and she scolded herself strongly that she was not making a near cross-country move to find a boyfriend.
No, she needed to find herself first, and her purpose, and something beneficial to do with the vast fortune the good Lord had blessed her with.
Her parents didn’t understand why she couldn’t do that in Atlanta, and Lila Mae had given up trying to explain it to them.
Of course, no one knew the whole truth about Lila’s desire to branch out on her own while staying close to something familiar, and a flash of regret moved through her.
Thankfully, Cleo sat, and Lila beamed at the cat as Trap reached out hesitantly toward her.
“She’s a Bengal,” she said.
“She looks like a tiny tiger.”
“Yes,” Lila said. “They’re a beautiful and rare breed, and she came to me injured. I nursed her back to health, but couldn’t bear to adopt her out again. She has quite a bit of anxiety, but she made the flight here just fine.”
“You flew with her?”
“How else do you think I got here?” Lila Mae shot back at him.
Trap blinked his eyes, leaving Cleo and coming to meet hers. “You didn’t tell me you were coming.”
“That’s not true,” she said. “I said I might try if I could get a flight.”
“You couldn’t have texted me before you took off?” he asked.
“You didn’t have to leave your church service.”
“Didn’t I?” He pulled out his phone. “Did you read your text? It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t, ‘What are you doing today, Trap?’ It was, ‘Meet me here in sixty minutes. I’m on the ground in Amarillo.’”
Lila Mae swallowed, because yes, that was what she had done. Her brother had told her she was too demanding, but Lila Mae had grown up being demanded of, and she didn’t know another way.
“I apologize,” she said, because she needed this man’s help.
He would be her only tie to Three Rivers and the success of this place, and she wanted nothing more than to show her family that she had good ideas and would do honorable things with their name.
“This week happens to be the best time for me,” she said.
“I apologize if that’s not the case for you. ”
“You’re going to be here all week?” Trap asked.
Lila Mae nodded. “If it’s a terribly awful time for you, I understand.” She reached into her handbag and pulled out her phone. “Perhaps we should schedule some appointments right now for this week.”
“All right.”
Lila Mae tapped on her phone. “I’ll work around you.
” She looked up, hope streaming through her at the reminder that she would be here in Three Rivers for a week by herself.
No overbearing older brother bossing her around, telling her what to do and making her feel small.
No mother sighing wistfully and saying she wished she had grandbabies by now.
After all, it seemed to only be Lila Mae’s job to provide them, as Kent had been engaged last year and unable to tie the knot, but her mother never talked about that. Oh, no. It was always about Lila Mae. She could hear her mother’s disapproving tone even from thousands of miles away.
Lila Mae shoved the thoughts out of her head. She didn’t have to deal with them this week, and she could finalize the plans for the build and the design with Ruby and Trap, and make the permanent move here come summertime.
“Well, what did you want to go over?” Trap asked, and Lila Mae blinked herself back to the conversation.
“I was hoping to walk through things with you today,” she said. “So we can meet and go over some designs later this week.” She looked up, hopeful. “I’ve been making a few sketches based on what you and Ruby sent me previously, but I need to see it for myself.”
Trap nodded and then indicated the chained gate connected to a fence that ran north and south for acres and acres.
“How are you planning on getting through that?” He looked over to her again, his gaze dripping all the way down to her shiny black heels and then climbing back to her face.
Heat filled her, and she wasn’t sure what kind of look Trap Walker wore on his face, but Lila had dated plenty of men in the past, and she recognized her own flash of attraction to this tall, dark, grumpy cowboy.
“You don’t have a key?” she asked.
“I don’t own this property, ma’am.” The words came with a hint of frustration embedded in them. “Don’t you have the key?”
Lila Mae huffed and surveyed the gate once more. It came together in two pieces of metal curved along the corners, each side with three rungs. It stood taller than her, to be sure, but surely she could duck between two of the slats and be on the property in a couple of seconds.
“I suppose I should have called the realtor,” she said.
Trap chuckled. “Yeah, probably while you were waiting for your flight to take off.”
She gave him a dry look and rolled her eyes. “Your point has been taken, Mister Walker. This morning was a bit of—well, it was a mess, okay?”
She sighed and took a couple of steps toward the gate, bringing Cleo with her on the leash. She put her elbows up on the top rung and gazed out at the land before her. Yes, it was a complete mess, just like the morning had been, and just like the past couple of years had been at Dixon’s Delights.
All in all, Lila Mae’s whole life had been a mess for the past couple of years, and she was ready to rebuild it into something she could be proud of, something that she could put her mark on, something that would bear her name and do good in the world.
“I’m sorry about this morning,” Trap said. “And honestly, you probably saved me from a boring sermon anyway.” He gave her half a smile and sighed as he too looked over the land. “I mean, it is your property, and we can probably duck under the fence here and walk around.”
“No,” Lila Mae said. “You’re right. I’m not dressed appropriately for a walk-through anyway.”
“You’re not dressed appropriately to get on a plane,” he said. “How do you walk through an airport in shoes like that?”
Lila Mae turned toward him and blinked once, twice, her heart pounding through her whole body.
Then, for some inexplicable reason, she tipped her head back and laughed.
It took Trap a couple of seconds to join her, but his deeper chuckle sounded among her higher-pitched laughter and reminded her that, though she would move here alone, she would at least know him.
So don’t drive him away, she told herself. Don’t act like he owes you something, because he doesn’t. And don’t act like you’re better than him, because you’re not.
“I don’t know how you wear those boots, cowboy,” she said as she quieted.
He smiled and simply shook his head. “I’m sure I can meet you out here sometime tomorrow,” he said. “Probably later in the afternoon, because I know I’m meeting with a family to do a tree house in the morning.”
“That should work really well,” Lila Mae said, and she turned away from the chained gate and the property she had purchased. “We can go over a timeline and final design this week.”
“Sure,” Trap said, and they started back toward his truck, Lila Mae gently leading Cleo along. They reached her bag, and she stooped and lifted it.
“Let me get that for you,” Trap said quickly, and he reached across her and took her suitcase from her.
Then they both faced his truck, and Lila Mae realized that she had not arranged transportation from the property—uninhabitable at the moment—to the rental she had secured for the week—what she’d done at the airport before taking off.
She looked over to Trap and found him blinking blankly at his truck. “Can you give us a ride?”
He whipped his attention toward her, his eyes dropping to the cat and back to her. “Will she go in her carrier?”
Lila Mae grinned and shook her head. “Oh, no. She yowled the whole way here. I couldn’t bear to put the poor thing back in the carrier.” She bent and picked up Cleo, hugging her tightly to her chest, while Trap’s mouth hung open and a look of disgust drew his eyebrows down into a frown.
Lila Mae grinned at him. “She’s very clean. We’ll just ride in the back.” She took the first step toward his truck, and he dodged in front of her.
“I am not your chauffeur driver,” he said. “You are not riding in the back. If I’m going to give you a ride to wherever you’re staying here in town, you can ride in the passenger seat like a normal person.”
He huffed at her and then stomped past her to the bed of his truck, where he threw her bag over unceremoniously before turning to pin her with a look that said, Well, are you coming or not?
Lila Mae liked him, and she liked that he’d stood up to her, and that he didn’t seem to know that she was worth billions of dollars. And why would he? She was just some woman obsessed with cats who had bought a dilapidated ranch and wanted to turn it into a feline sanctuary.
So she kicked him a smile and went to get in the front passenger seat.